That I could not tell you for sure. I had heard that statement before but not sure if the north face of Hood would compete or if that would be considered a cliff. I know of one guy who climbed this face of the Matterhorn a few years ago via a thread on cascadeclimbers.

No, sorry. I have not heard anything about this since. I have seen reports about the rock quality and that the limestone is supposedly so soft, it can be damaged by just a hard bootkick. So, I don't think a lot of climbing goes on there to bring much notice to it. It sure is an impressive rock wall to see.

The limestone seems to vary from very solid rotten clinkery stuff you can step through. On slopes it seems to vary unpredictably. The harder, relatively solid stuff (on Sac, at least) tends to break of in fairly regular flat chunks that can slide easily on each other. There seems to be a lot of small high speed rock coming off the steeper limestone around Thorp Creek. It's hard to imagine it being fun dealing with those conditions for two or three thousand nearly vertical feet.

Whatever the highest cliff may be (and how about some of the Great Basin scarps), this one looms largest in my memories.

Again, the relief, or modeling, of the features in your photo is outstanding and the color is sweetly intense and naturally subdued (ie not saturated to postcard hues in Photoshop).

Well, they are on the ridge north of the Matterhorn, look in the rotten shale, towards Sacajawea.
also, on the Enterprise side, up Murray creek, there is an amazing preserved reef system with giant cross sections of GIANT halobia clams. can you imagine 4 foot across clams?! anyway, you heading back anytime soon? I always wanted to go in, in the dead of winter, maybe try some of those shacks up Aneroid. Never did get up Jefferson this year. Bummed.
ok, cheers

Wow, I had no idea about those clams. That would be amazing to see. If I get up Matterhorn again sometime, I will have to keep an eye out.

I'm probably headed back to the Wallowas next summer. I've often thought about snowshoeing up in the winter but not sure if I will this winter. Hopefully sometime. I think Chief Joseph would be a nice (and accessible) snowshoe trip. can you get in around Aneroid in winter? Or are you talking about hiking down the Hidden/East Peak ridge?